Wednesday, 11 January 2012

Picasso Analysis

'Pablo Picasso is most well known for his cubism paintings where sections of a real thing, most usually portraits of people are placed in various areas, making the painting a surreal concept of jumbled up body parts and or facial features. Later on in Picasso’s life, he was shown some photographs of light patterns formed by a skater’s leaps – obtained by affixing tiny lights on the points of the skates. Picasso leaped straight into this technique with a flashlight. One of his first light drawings he created was ‘Pablo Picasso’s Flashlight Centaur. I am analysing Picasso’s ‘Three Picassos, One Vision’.

Looking at the photograph, you can see where Pablo Picasso used a 1/10,000-second strobe light to create a golden lined image in mid air. This image would have been captured using a slow shutter speed on a camera in order to retain all of the light’s movement. Unlike a lot of modern light paintings, Picasso created this photograph in a semi-dark room opposed to a full blacked out room. Working out what a light painting photograph was meant to be can sometimes very hard as the photographer, or artist in this case has to work extremely fast in order to achieve the desired effect; and of course, they themselves cannot make a precise image. At the top of the light painting, it seems to be in the shape of a face as there is definitely an eye to the left of the oval shaped head. Just below this an outline of a nose can be seen. Towards the lower part of the light painting, there is a definite curved line where just above is a curved line leading back to the body suggesting that this person Picasso was drawing is kneeling on a carpet or mat perhaps. In the background of this photograph, Picasso can be seen multiple times. The most prominent one is where he is standing upright with a neutral face expression. To the right, Picasso can be seen leaning to his left, wide eyed and in the middle of creating the light drawing. The last captured image of Picasso in this photograph is between the first two mentioned, crouching close to the floor, frown on his face with his right arm outstretched towards the bottom of where some of the lines are. Further into the background of the photograph, it looks like there is an unfinished canvas on an easel along with various pieces of furniture.

I was not able to find a specific meaning of this light painting. However, the title of the photograph – ‘Three Picassos, One Vision’ suggests that even though he has been captured in the photograph at various points of the process, the focal point is meant to be the light drawing itself. The fact that the title of the photograph mentions how many times Picasso himself has been captured in the image could also imply that even though only he was creating the light drawing, a lot of thought went into it; possibly the equivalent of the thoughts of three people. This can be shown as his image has been captured at three different points. One standing upright with a neutral face expression could represent the disposition of a calm mind taking the approach. Picasso leaning to his left with wide eyes and an outstretched arm could suggest an excited person’s approach to the task at hand. Finally, the Picasso caught crouching with a frown upon his brow could represent someone who takes his time in creating work and thinks a lot both before and during. Another meaning that could be taken from looking at the photograph is that even though he was at three different, prominent positions during the creation of the light drawing, he was looking at and knowing what he wanted to create constantly, therefore him having ‘one vision’. This could also suggest that in life, three very different people with different backgrounds and or whereabouts that can have the same one vision of wanting to do something or aspire to.

I really like this image as Picasso combined the light drawing with three translucent images of him that were captured during him creating the light drawing, as a lot of modern light painting photograph are created in a very dark room or in complete darkness. Due to this, it gives observers of the photograph more to look at and more to think about with the various pieces of furniture in the background of the image.